Counting 1000 Gifts

Something lifted late last week. I don't know why, but I am grateful.

Aiming for 1000 gifts this year.

• Glasses, found...!
• ....in the driveway, not run over!
• Earpieces broken because one teenaged girl, tired, would sleep with them on (or on them). And we were helped to find frames at the store that fit the lenses. Associate said a one in ten chance!
• Lovely weather.
• Heart-to-heart with beloved.
• New cookbook, The America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook: A Faster, Smarter Way to Cook Everything from America's Most Trusted Test Kitchen on sale. Perhaps it will shake me out of dinner doldrums. 
• Counting days of refraining, with God's grace, from anger. 
• Focusing on the positive and having faith.

The Sin of Ingratitude

The sin of ingratitude.

During a walk today, I confessed that to God.

I have been unwilling to keep after my gifts list, my list of things for which I am grateful. The list of things I love that are gifts from God.

Why had it become so hard?

And why was I so easily irritated? So quick to get angry?

I turned to One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, thinking that I might find some help there.

I bought this book shortly after it came out, but since I was involved in the challenge to read the Bible in 90 days (in addition to my BSF study), I put it aside. (Believe me, I needed every moment to accomplish the Bible in 90 days goal, and I still ran over by 13!)

Then it was summer and surely I would have time. But summer was very busy and I had my summer Bible study to do and no time to read One Thousand Gifts slowly (for that is how I knew I wanted to read it).

So although I had read the first chapters quickly when I got it, and skimmed some of the rest, I hadn't read the whole book. And I had not read slowly, marking what I needed to remember.

You know those people who save the very nicest things for "someday"? Well, that is what was going on with me with One Thousand Gifts. Once I started it, I knew I would finish it and then I wouldn't have it to look forward to.... And somehow I cannot mark a book until I have owned it for some time and I needed to mark lots in this book.

But I picked it up and re-read the heartbreaking first chapter and then further on.

And this is what I got:

I am suffering from the sin of ingratitude.
Giving thanks changes things.
I have to learn how to do this.
Practice. My list is my practice of being grateful to God for the gifts He has given.
It is my way of receiving the gifts.

Eucharisteo -- thanksgiving
root word: charis -- grace
derivative: chara -- joy

Being ungrateful is a way of saying that I know better than God. That He doesn't really love me. At least, not as much as He loves others.



So I resolve to take up the list. The list that I started in November 2007 and kept off-and-on through early July 2011. Three years and eight months. And my gifts number only 301. That is an average of six or seven gifts a month.

I almost cry for the time lost due to my stubbornness. Not so much because my list is not long, but because I have not made a practice of gratitude; I have not healed the hard, anxious heart. I have not opened my eyes to the good things. I have not surrendered my will to God's good and perfect will for my life. And I have affected those around me.

Today, I thank You, Lord, for the gifts...

302. breeze against my arms--not cool, not warm, just ... perfect
303. the color of leaves on a tree: some dark, some light. And how they move!
304. swaying of trees in the wind (so comforting)
305. remembering that at one point I resigned myself to no husband and no children: a husband and three kids
306. Lord, I love seeing birds fly
307. And airplanes in the distance
308. and that one house with the landscaping that I love.

And by naming, thanking, I receive and I hope and pray that I change. Please, Lord, change me! Amen.

Multitudes on Monday for August 29, 2011

church and worship
GoBible
answered prayers: God has given me motivation here at home!
books
chiropractor who can help with neck problems (which means fewer migraines)
self education
The Hobbit
early mornings
exercising
dreams
prayer journal, prayer cards
scripture spiral
and other prayer journals
memorizing
Night Hours

Giving thanks is hard! I don't understand why, but sometimes it is so hard.

Counting gifts and graces...

Saying thank you, Lord, for the gifts and graces:

Summer Bible study with our summer Bible study group

Hospitality

Improved SAT scores

Much-needed rain yesterday

A group of friends helping a friend in need

Another group praying for the friend in need and the group helping

Seeing, really seeing, what God is doing through us

One Thousand Gifts ... a video and a book

Figuring Life Out - One Thousand Gifts from Jacob Forrest on Vimeo.

I don't have the book in hand yet, but will get it on Thursday.

I really look forward to reading it.

And...

I am so happy it is doing so well! 

1000 gifts list

... father and son who get along like two peas in a pod...

... the insight that I cannot make them care about what I think they should care about.

... and the freedom to stop trying...

... remembering how much I love my kids. I'd forgotten. How could that be?

Multitudes on Monday; 1000 Gifts

* God who gives us a way back

* family's forgiveness after my anger yesterday

* husband who does mission work

* my son finally got his car and God, it is a good one! Thank you.

* quiet

* my new journal to record my gifts

 from Mardel's

My gifts lists are scattered about in several places, some numbered, some not. I am going to put them all in the journal above, number them and really commit to the practice of gratitude in my life.

I'm like the Israelites in the desert, complaining about what I don't have instead of being grateful for what I do have. Humble me, God. Forgive me, Father. Restore me.

1000 Gifts

summer, fall, winter, spring: changing seasons
when my husband laughs
kids growing up
State Parks
National Parks
our public schools
More Times Mom family calendar

1000 Gifts and Healing a Heart

I stopped recording my gifts lists here because I wasn't sure I wanted to reveal so much about myself, as I explained here.

Eleven days later, Ann had a post at Holy Experience that really caused me to question my stance. You must read it, here. Good stuff.

So now I will be recording gifts here again from time to time. I have renewed my practice of writing them down, too. I had slipped away from that habit. But I know I need to make some heart changes and gratitude is one of them.

I had a heart attack. So I am contemplating what all that means, because I know it means more than physical muscle, veins, arteries, valves and blood.

Physically, I am not the typical heart patient (if there is such a thing). Not that old. Not overweight. No high blood pressure. Only borderline high cholesterol. No relatives with heart disease (at least not until they were well into their sixties or seventies or eighties...). I was exercising. Eating relatively healthfully. (We vegetarians until just this past year -- that's about 16 years for me, more for hubby because he was a vegetarian long before that.)

But stress, oh my, yes. And more negative emotions that I hate to admit: Irritable. Angry. Ungrateful. Seeing the negative. Worried. Afraid. Insecure. Controlling. And knowing that as a Christian, I should be experiencing the opposite. But not knowing how.

I'm asking God to show me the way and, as much as He wills, the why. And I think He has asked me to start with gratefulness.

1000 Gifts

Gifts...

• loss of electricity...we got to spend time with family and neighbors outside
• my understanding husband
• tears
• goodness of most people
• my church (the building and the people)
• libraries and their books
• KISS Grammar! (what a surprise--I didn't use to like grammar)
• changing seasons
• new days, ability to start fresh and try again
• forgiveness
• Ann at Holy Experience
• Ambleside Online Advisory
  

1000 Gifts

1000 gifts. I have not been numbering them, nor have I been very good the last few days about noticing them. And it shows. In my attitude. A bit of irritability, with a dab of self-pity stirred in. Not appealing!

If I keep coming back to these things, perhaps the habit of praising and noticing will become stronger.

Recent gifts:

• Mission trips for junior high youth (JUMMP)
• Like-minded souls, especially when I am feeling different, alone or unsure
• God's Word, which tells me to be a God-pleaser and not a people pleaser
• Communion and kneeling in prayer at the rail
  
• Prayer teen(s) at VBS this week

A focus on praising God and the discipline of noticing gifts from God makes me a different better person.

Gratitude

• Summer swim team: exercise, accomplishment, friends and structure for the beginning of the summer for the kids.
  
• Excellent coaches (in any sport). We've had them and so appreciate them.
  
• Learning the phrase, "procrastination takes too long" and really starting to believe it and use it. (A life-long procrastinator I am. It is tied to my insecurity that produces perfectionism and "what will they think of me?-ism")
• Changing "what do they think of me?" to "what does God think?"
  
• New days. What would we do without fresh starts?
  
• Grape juice from concentrate. I try to drink water mostly. I do not drink soft drinks. I limit my tea consumption to hot green tea in the morning. And all those sports drinks are too sweet (and I am not exercising now -- I should be, but I am not!). Grape juice is nice when I need something with flavor.
• Family. I would be so lonely without my family!
  

More Gratitude

Thanks to Ann at Holy Experience for the reminder to remain grateful; to always look for the gifts. The gifts she sees and describes are no mere list of things to be grateful for. I am convinced that because she has asked to have her eyes opened, she is seeing things she would not have seen otherwise.

• Watching high school baseball on a breezy Texas night. Not much better than this! (Watching my son's team this spring--before things started to change--that was extra special. To see a team come together and play like they played . . . And they were all good boys, too.)
• Bible Study Guide for All Ages. My kids and I have learned so much with this program. It is not really CM (Charlotte Mason--meaning, it doesn't use her methods of learning, which would be reading and then narrating), but we have learned a lot.

Seeing Gifts, Practicing Gratitude . . .

My eyes have not been on the gifts lately. I have forgotten to practice gratitude. Father, forgive me.

There is so much that He has given, but if I fail to see, my life is poorer for it.

So, a list of a few things . . .

• My kids. I really am so grateful for them. When they happen to all be gone at the same time (rare!), I miss them so much. When they are here, I fail to be grateful.

• Nature is a gift from God. How many years was I oblivious to all but the most incredible sights? I forget to go outside and just "be" for a while. Let me remember and rest.

• My husband is such a good man; better than I deserve; a true gift from God.

• Praying the hours. I am still striving to make this a habit, but it is a gift. When I pray the hours (using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours), I am praising. I was so tired of my own prayers, which were lists of things I wanted--not all of them for me (most were for others)--but still, just things I wanted. Praying the hours with The Divine Hours keeps my prayers more well-balanced.

• Good movies. The kids and I saw Prince Caspian yesterday. I was so moved. Even though it varied from the book, I loved it. And I grateful that there are movies like this and that they are successful.

• AAA. Yes, I know it is a service we pay for. But husband was out of town, interior lights were left on overnight and battery was dead in the morning. Thanks to AAA and a wonderfully polite man, my battery was charged.

Holy Experience: The Thousand Gifts

Here is the inspiration for my gratitude list.

Holy Experience: The Thousand Gifts

Gratitude

1. Girls had good lessons.

2. Birds, bird calls and migration.

3. Hearing my teenage son's gentle, "Hi" directed to the dog.

4. Taste of green tea and the fact it is my preference these days.

5. A fun dinner at IHOP with the kids. We laughed together.

6. Kitchen cleaned nicely by one of the kids.

7. Kids' smiles.

8. Helping my son with English homework and noticing how big he is.

9. Baseball season has begun.

10. Rain.

11. Grace, which comes from God.

12. Most important gift, that of salvation, from my Lord, Jesus Christ.

Joining many others, I am writing my list of gifts.